The Supreme Courts Obamacare ruling on Thursday cuts right to the very fabric of the relationship between a once-limited government and a once-free citizen, but the eternal struggle between liberty and tyranny endures. It is a beginning, not an end.

As enormously important as the high courts Obamacare ruling is - and its huge - its not the final word. The legal and political dust has not yet settled, and it will take some time for the unpredictable ripples to form the powerful waves of history. Yet, history waits for no man, so we begin by asking: What now?

First, we mourn. We mourn that a nation built on the principle of limited government has grown the largest government in the history of humankind. We mourn that our Supreme Court rewrote Obamacare into Obamatax to allow for the individual mandate. We mourn that once again we read the lips of a president who promised he would not raise our taxes but did so anyway. We mourn that Washington no longer rules with the consent of the governed.

But this mourning, as appropriate as it is, must be short-lived. This struggle for our liberty, this struggle to abide by the principles of our founding begins anew. We can no longer trust that Washington will save the great experiment of self-governance that is the United States of America. Just as it has always been, the fate of our republic rests in the hands of the voters.

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Its now down to this: If Barack Obama holds the White House, and if Democrats win control of either house of Congress, then Obamacare will be unstoppable, and America will become the United States of Europe. We will have sacrificed our freedom and our exceptionalism for the false promises of the government-centered society. The 2012 election just became infinitely more important.

Yes, the voters will save America on 6Nov12. By re-electing Barack Obama for a second term as President. And, I hope, by maintaining a Democratic majority in the Senate, and pitching the Teabagger fools in the House out on their ears.

There is part of me that agrees with the OP but there is that other part that says voting doesn't matter nothing will change it's an on going struggle and old rocks post is a good example of how stupid America is. Dumb asses will vote for failure for those little bells and whistles that will not last long.

Yes, and guys like you were saying the same of Social Security prior to WW2. How has that worked out. You like the idea of 750,000 American families going bankrupt because of medical bills every year? That your definition of fun and games?

Yes, and guys like you were saying the same of Social Security prior to WW2. How has that worked out. You like the idea of 750,000 American families going bankrupt because of medical bills every year? That your definition of fun and games?

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Without social security Clinton wouldn't have been able to claim a surplus. Just keep thinking Social security as is, is a good thing it's a ponzi scheme

Yes, and guys like you were saying the same of Social Security prior to WW2. How has that worked out. You like the idea of 750,000 American families going bankrupt because of medical bills every year? That your definition of fun and games?

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You should educate yourself, Rocks. Here's an old article from 2009 that will get you started.

Social Security's actuaries make such a calculation on page 64. It says that Social Security's unfunded liability in perpetuity is $17.5 trillion (treating the trust fund as meaningless). The program would need that much money today in a real trust fund outside the government earning a true return to pay for all the benefits that have been promised over and above future Social Security taxes. In effect, the capital stock of the nation would have to be $17.5 trillion larger than it is right now. Alternatively, the payroll tax rate would have to rise by 4%.

To put it another way, Social Security's unfunded liability equals 1.3% of the gross domestic product. So if we were to fund its deficit with general revenues, income taxes would have to rise by 1.3% of GDP immediately and forever. With the personal income tax raising about 10% of GDP in coming years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, this means that every taxpayer would have to pay 13% more just to make sure that all Social Security benefits currently promised will be paid.

As bad as that is, however, Social Security's problems are trivial compared to Medicare's. Its trustees also issued a report this week. On page 69 we see that just part A of that program, which pays for hospital care, has an unfunded liability of $36.4 trillion in perpetuity. The payroll tax rate would have to rise by 6.5% immediately to cover that shortfall or 2.8% of GDP forever. Thus every taxpayer would face a 28% increase in their income taxes if general revenues were used to pay future Medicare part A benefits that have been promised over and above revenues from the Medicare tax.

But this is just the beginning of Medicare's problems, because it also has two other programs: part B, which covers doctor's visits, and part D, which pays for prescription drugs.

The unfunded portion of Medicare part B is already covered by general revenues under current law. The present value of that is $37 trillion or 2.8% of GDP in perpetuity according to the trustees report (p. 111). The unfunded portion of Medicare part D, which was rammed into law by George W. Bush and a Republican Congress in 2003, is also covered by general revenues under current law and has a present value of $15.5 trillion or 1.2% of GDP forever (p. 127).

To summarize, we see that taxpayers are on the hook for Social Security and Medicare by these amounts: Social Security, 1.3% of GDP; Medicare part A, 2.8% of GDP; Medicare part B, 2.8% of GDP; and Medicare part D, 1.2% of GDP. This adds up to 8.1% of GDP. Thus federal income taxes for every taxpayer would have to rise by roughly 81% to pay all of the benefits promised by these programs under current law over and above the payroll tax.

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